1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a slide hinge for a small-sized information terminal such as a cellular phone, PHS, PDA and so on.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, remarkable progress has been made in techniques for small-sized information terminals such as a cellular phone, PHS, and PDA, in which one becoming a mainstream is configured such that it is further reduced in size and improved in portability, and in addition, to achieve a larger display portion, a keyboard portion and a display portion are provided in separate casings, and a first casing provided with the keyboard portion and a second casing provided with the display portion are made foldable to each other using hinges. These hinges have a function of automatically opening/closing the first casing and the second casing from a predetermined open/closed angle.
However, there are strong demands for a reduced size and improved portability of such a small-sized information terminal. For this reason, a slide hinge has been proposed which slidably links the first casing and the second casing which are overlapped each other.
Well-known one having the above-type configuration is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-300243.
The slide hinge disclosed in Patent Document 1 is for a cellular phone, in which the first casing provided with the keyboard portion and the second casing provided with the display portion are configured to be able to relatively and linearly slide through a pair of slide means. Each slide means is composed of a slide member, an accommodating plate secured to the second casing for accommodating the slide member, and a guide plate supporting the slide member in cooperation with the accommodating plate and formed with a guide hole for guiding a slide of the slide member.
In the above-described configuration, it is not necessary to protrudingly provide on the upper portion of each casing the hinge foldably linking the first casing and the second casing, so that a cellular phone can be shortened in length into a small size. However, a problem of poor operability arises because there is no function of automatically sliding the second casing immediately before the second casing covers the top surface of the first casing or immediately before the second casing exposes the top surface of the first casing at a maximum.